Scavenger: A.I.: (Sand Divers, Book Two)

by Timothy C. Ward

  The shaking subsided deep into the earth.

  Arthur’s sucking on the tube instilled a soothing rhythm.

  Rush rose to a knee. Lifted his Poseidon hand to rest his palm to the center of the dome. He charged EM as the thousand beetles clamped from chest to arm to wrist.

  Star and Fish, this world will know your sacrificing love.

  The dome burst open and light showered Rush with the setting of his new life.

  Epilogue

  The Gov climbed out of the soggy earth, his planted hand invisible save for the impression in the sand. Thick, steady drops melted beside it, also seen only in their effects on the darkened sand. He didn’t even have a shadow. Something terrifying and empty resided in that, as though stranded on a planet that didn’t recognize his presence.

  A deep throbbing from shoulder to chest sucked on his strength. Dixon’s trident had fallen out while he was undersand. The holes it drilled through discharged a warm flow inside his suit, and outside, as it coursed down his arm. If cared for properly, it would be a non-lethal blow. If he found Saito’s signal soon. He surely didn’t want to have to swim up through the mountainous cliff stacked high and all around him. Around the city he alone deserved to stake.

  The sun’s heat drew sweat equal to the loss of blood.

  “I see you, Gov.”

  He turned. Star?

  She sounded right behind him, but behind him was liquid sand and Old World cars with their flattened tires half sunk in the muck he left behind.

  “You’re governor of no one now.”

  Her serious tone made him wonder what she was up to. Are you invisible, too?

  “No. I’m no coward. I just wanted you to know, a wasp is coming for you, and when it cuts you down, know that Star Stenson is the one who conquered you and your M-MAN plague.”

  “Is that so?” He didn’t see any wasps. What was she talking about?

  “Denver will be a city of hope. Rush and Arthur and Cool will ensure it. And as its glory spreads, your name will be forgotten.”

  The Gov rose to find her. Fifty yards of parking lot distanced him from Carroll and Dixon. Her face and neck muscles strained as she helped Dixon stand. Star was nowhere. Not in the spaces between cars or resting on top, watching him, as he imagined. He hated to think she could be right, that a wasp was somehow hunting him.

  A loud pop of light erupted from farther past Carroll, close to the street bordering the Plaza’s sidewalk. Its glow was a bright shimmer through the heated air.

  Dixon and Carroll shielded their eyes as they followed its source over their shoulders.

  The Gov turned back to the mountain weighing him down with fatigue of what he’d have to do if Saito didn’t find him. How could the country he ruled not be running to his aid? They should be throwing themselves headlong to save him. Without his efforts to clean their water, rebuild hospitals—

  A long, hot line penetrated his lower back and scorched through his stomach, like a molten hook yanked through by a string. The source slowed in an upward arc to hover at his chest.

  The wasp buzzed before him, metallic and menacing in its patience. She was right.

  He swatted, but it rotated and burrowed through his palm. He swung a backhand to try and catch it, but it merely used the flesh to open a new path into his arm, zig-zagging a severed line through muscle and skipping off bone.

  The bastard insect expelled itself through a boiling explosion in his left shoulder.

  He twisted on his hips but couldn’t lift his arm. The whipping bullet plummeted and cut through his outer thigh, through the meat of his calf, down a hot shaving of shin bone, sideways through his toes—lopping off all ten, the Fuck—and back again through both ankles.

  The Gov fell to his knees, too aghast for words.

  The wasp punctured a tunnel in his stomach, making like a tornado through his intestines. The unlucky exit showered his pants with liquid fire. Twisting barbwire drove up his back….

  The Gov’s face planted in sand. He coughed blood into the mud. No red pool, only pushed air and darkened sand. Invisible like him. Like he would be after his last breath, which was coming soon. This was too much, even for him.

  If Saito would hurry the hell up!

  He remembered the Gathering of the Six, picturing again their faces years later in death, their ultimate moments of weakness and failure.

  You will not get one from me.

  He may die, but he would not let them know for sure. His invisibility would preserve his ghost’s reach in myth and fireside tales of horror.

  As though in response, an implosion released thunder deep enough to crack the world in two. Its rumble sounded from somewhere inside the city, nearby. He couldn’t access muscles to roll over and look. His body torqued with torturous spasms fighting to survive the numbness taking over. He’d die with his ass in the air if the tremors below him didn’t bounce him high enough to spare his embarrassment.

  Not embarrassment. It was what he thought of the world without him.

  He deactivated his invisibility. Let them find me like this.

  The base of his head hurt new pain, washed over with a cool breeze, the smell of lemon, then the ocean, and a soft voice whispering, “The other side awaits.”

  Cold became hollow as the rumble of thunder dampened and The Gov lost touch with the realm he knew. Into the realm of unknown. Walls fell and pressed space into an eternal dusk. The shadow of the victor. The Gov passed through the freefall with space to give, unable to lift a finger otherwise.

  Thank you for reading Scavenger: A.I. (Sand Divers, Book Two)! The best thing you can do now is head over to Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you bought it and share an honest review. Seriously, this will help me reach new readers and further my plan to write full time.

  I believe more stories can be told in this wonderfully rich world that Hugh Howey created in Sand, but whether or not I write them depends on how well this book sells and if it receives a lot of reviews.

  For more information about me, head over to www.timothycward.com and if you want to make sure not to miss any of my future releases, sales or giveaways, sign up to my email newsletter at: http://www.timothycward.com/join-my-newsletter/.

  Flip the page to begin my next book, a new series beginning with Godsknife: Revolt, an apocalyptic fantasy set in the rift between Iowa and the Abyss: http://thirdscribe.com/books/godsknife-revolt/

  GODSKNIFE: REVOLT

  By

  Timothy C. Ward

  Chapter 1

  In a small, candle-lit cave, Anthon stood at the head of a table where his recruit, Jeremy, prepared to recite the final set of numbers. Anthon remembered fourteen months ago, when the now naked nineteen-year-old was a freshman at Iowa State with his face buried in a campus map—Jeremy had been so thankful for Anthon’s directions to the cafeteria.

  Jeremy’s face didn’t show much thankfulness now, as he sweated and gagged on the worm travelling up his windpipe.

  You’re almost there, Anthon thought.

  Watching a recruit call out the orden-worm was his least favorite part of his duty to Order. Success or failure in Jeremy's naming of the final number was life or death—live, and become an Order mage, and an atom to serve in Shila’s orden-powered circle; or die, and Chaos kills another.

  Further motivation to rid the world of its sickness.

  Jeremy hacked phlegm and swallowed. “Eight.”

  Good. You can do this.

  Shila offered a brief nod from the other side of the table. In spite of her apparent need to evoke respect through her chiseled demeanor, a bit of warmth couldn’t hurt their recruit’s confidence.

  It’s just the three of us, Shila. Would it kill you to show him why we rejoice to call you Priestess?

  “Seventeen thousand....” Jeremy’s voice scratched out through the narrow tunnel of air left between throat and worm. “...Four hundred, sixty—” He retched before he could speak the last number. The echo hit the short ceiling and bounced back
dimensions between it and every surface before him.

  If Jeremy fails—if I fail—his death will toss me into a Chaos spiral for days.

  Shila had only given Anthon ten minutes of meditation to build the buzz of Orden before the ceremony. It itched on his gums and tickled through his eyelashes, ready for use in the sight of need.

  Jeremy turned onto his side and let a string of yellow-red drool hang into a two inch pool on the pixilated gray and pink stone.

  Anthon’s stomach clenched as Shila speared him with her disapproval. No one who struggled this much had risen to her inner circle.

  His reason for not having that privilege was different. If she was afraid their past relationship would diminish the merit of earning that position, surely he’d earned it by now. Jeremy passing the test should warrant that conversation soon.

  He gently pressed Jeremy’s shoulder back down into the stone. The skin warmed under his touch—a small violation.

  Shila’s directed stare warned him not to let that happen again, and he released his touch, issuing a short bow of apology. He wished he could speak for Jeremy, but that power had to come from within. Only then could Jeremy conquer the deadly worm.

  The equation had to come from the soul, an understanding of the Order of the Universe, and a mastery over it. Only then would the orden-worm choose the food laced into the atom’s stomach, burying itself in its host, after which the two would survive or die together in symbiotic harmony. If Jeremy did not name the final number, the orden-worm would enter his nose, feed on his brain, and methodically work its way down to his toes... until he was a sagging shell of skin on bones.

  Jeremy took a deep breath through his nose, tilted his head back and looked Anthon in the eye—terrified, but resilient.

  That’s the recruit I know.

  Jeremy nodded, closed his eyes to swallow, and hacked up, “Sa-van.”

  Yes.

  The orden-worm squealed a shrill cry as it wiggled up out of Jeremy’s mouth. Its snake-like head poked out from inside the curve of Jeremy's tongue, slid over the tip, and bent up near the atom’s flared nostrils. It clamped its teeth together and hissed, with two white fangs cutting down like a sharp ‘w’ over the single fang on the bottom lip.

  Jeremy’s eyes again shot wide as he watched the orden-worm turn to face him.

  A gray tongue slithered between the worm’s teeth. Some worms had been tainted somehow and chose to feed on their hosts regardless of the correct number spoken, perhaps because the atom did not truly possess Order.

  Jeremy's breaths pumped in and out as the thump of his heart rate climbed back over one-eighty.

  Easy now. Creation is ours to order. Grasp your birthright.

  Jeremy looked up into Anthon's eyes again.

  Anthon could only display the stern look he'd shown all his atoms during the most demanding times of their training. Chaos snaps thin branches.

  Be the trunk, he mouthed. He did not look up, not wanting to see Shila’s likely rebuke.

  Jeremy’s heart rate dropped below one-eighty. He grinned—as much as possible with a worm between one’s tongue—and directed his stare at his new partner.

  The worm rose past his nose, pointed its head at Jeremy's left eye, and hissed. When Jeremy didn’t flinch, the orden-worm tilted toward his other eye, paused, and then curled back around.

  Anthon exhaled in time with his atom. Good work, Jeremy.

  The orden-worm curled over Jeremy's chin. It stretched long enough to remain in his mouth as it touched down on his sweat-glistened and expanding chest.

  The young atom exhaled his heart rate into the one-fifties as the worm aimed for its prize. Jeremy wasn't done yet, but at least the pain to come would have a positive impact.

  Pride turned Anthon's observation into a positive one as well, both in himself and in his pupil.

  Shila lifted her gaze to Anthon’s. She'd grown so much since they first met as newbies to this hidden world. She’d replaced the dirty pink shirt with dandelion-colored pattern that had covered her prepubescent body, and now wore skin-exposing, tightly tied straps, which displayed the most coveted form in their circle. The way her age distanced him from the girl he knew made Anthon feel worse than any orden high could redeem.

  He knew she had to hide that girl in order for her to be a strong leader, but if it meant burying that soul under a mountain of rock, why bother? For Order? Even he wasn’t that faithful.

  The orden-worm reached Jeremy's navel, arched its head back, maw gaping to make room for its fangs—

  Firm, Jeremy. No fear.

  —and plunged into the divot of flesh. The atom clenched and hocked spit.

  A few dribbles dotted Shila’s skin; Anthon dared not look her in the eye.

  The worm slithered out the rest of the way from Jeremy’s mouth as it burrowed itself in a concentric circle around the atom’s naval. The newly raised scar formed two loops before joining the widest part at the bottom. The worm halted its feeding frenzy as its length shivered under Jeremy’s pale skin.

  Jeremy exhaled and rested his head on the stone.

  Anthon patted his atom’s shoulder, releasing a dose of orden to calm Jeremy’s nerves. At his touch, the worm pulsed its thank you. “Welcome to Order.”

  “Satisfactory.” Shila took Jeremy’s hand and helped him off the table. “But left room for improvement. I trust you’ll make up for it.”

  She led him through the black shale wall, their bodies passing through as easily as ships through fog, minus the disturbance of gas. In her bedroom, her tap on their circle’s stored orden would flow into him and bond him to the circle.

  Anthon turned the other way and cast his height and dimensions on the wall. Before his hand reached the surface, he clenched his stomach and forced the molecules to part. Darkness and warmth allowed him to share company as he stepped through. Dark passed to light in a hallway lit by window panels, with a picture of a snow-covered mountain horizon, untouched by human interference—a portrait by Citkich, one of Anthon’s favorite Order artists.

  He could use the rush of orden Citkich must have felt when he’d finished. Jeremy had passed, and Anthon should be happy.

  Evelyn saw him exit the wall, jogged to him, and stopped cold when she saw his face. She waved her hand and stepped back. Her focus caught on his midsection, and her lip quivered.

  He traced her stare to the spots of blood on his yellow robe. He’d had thicker stains after Marc’s failed bedding. “It’s okay. He passed.”

  She parted her lips, then turned around, mumbling threats that would get her kicked out of the circle if she wasn’t careful. Her pant legs sashayed between her thin legs. Since she was one of his trainees, he knew her uni size—he hated to say uniform; sounded too stiff to him—and could yank her back from the nine feet four inches between them. He could, but never did. That wasn’t how he treated his trainees.

  “Evelyn, wait.” He increased his pace, replaying the conversations they’d shared, which verged on blasphemy.

  The girl had found lesserthan scripture; from where, she wouldn’t say.

  If he had to let her go, he would. Better that than let Shila do what he feared she could if she heard a hint of Maker text.

  He caught up. “Evelyn, please... talk to me.”

  She stopped. “Mortal words can’t rewrite time, nor unbind him from that demon.” Her pose faltered and the end of her braid swished over her shoulder. She might have been fighting back tears.

  “You can’t talk like that in here,” he whispered. No one else had joined them in the hall, but listening ears were not always visible, especially in Shila’s mount. “I know you liked Jeremy, and—” He lifted her chin and waited until she looked him in the eye.

  She did so in defiance, red veins within glazed eyes.

  “He told me what you talked about Saturday.”

  She ripped her jaw away, and swung her arm up in anticipation of an attack he didn’t make.

  “Really, Ev? When have I stru
ck you?”

  “Things are different. I see differently. Who knows what you’ll do to keep your priestess safe?”

  “You’ve known me five hundred twenty-two days.”

  “Stop with the numbers. It’s magic as twisted as she is.”

  “I told you to keep your voice down,” he whispered. “If you want to leave, I will help you.”

  Better that than see her banished. He wasn’t high enough in Shila’s hierarchy to ask what happened to the lost ones.

  Evelyn considered his help, and flashed resistance. “I’m not leaving Jeremy.”

  Her boyfriend was experiencing the most pleasure of his life. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Ev, he’s made his choice, and now he has to stay and be trained.” Jeremy had decent self-control, but the intoxication of orden’s first dose was a hazard to all newborns.

  Evelyn covered her face as she sobbed.

  He continued. “The most dangerous thing for him now would be not getting the training that’s to come. With his new power, he’s as much a danger to himself as you, and to anyone else he encounters.”

  She threw her hands down. “Don’t you hear yourself?” She armed off a tear from her cheek. “Making people dangerous is not a teaching of Order. Even I know that.”

  “Dangerous only if used unwisely. World-changing when used properly.”

  Evelyn opened her mouth to interrupt—

  “We sweat and bleed to keep our cistern from depleting. Chaos is up to something, and we need all the newborns we can deliver. What better alternative do you see outside?”

  “You know well the three powers that make up our existence.”

  Oh, girl.... He took her arm and led her down the hall. “I told—”